After painstakingly typing a password to download every Angry Birds update, Apple iPhone users got a reak with the latest 5s model's fingerprint scanner. The addition could mark a turning point for biometric security technology, long a subject of concern to privacy advocates.

Called Touch ID, it makes the smartphones less susceptible to theft or misuse, and owners are lapping it up, according to Apple. Company research shows that 83% use a fingerprint scan to unlock their 5s phones, compared with fewer than half who previously bothered to secure their devices with passwords. Banks such as Bank of America, with 15 million active mobile accounts, may use the technology in future iPhone applications.

This month, Apple laid out plans to open up Touch ID to app developers when it releases a new mobile operating system by fall. Ultimately, that may let iPhone users skip passwords with the press of a finger to enter secure areas such as bank accounts. But with privacy breaches so frequent, adding biometric identifiers to the online ecosystem has some experts wondering how banks and other organizations will collect, store, transmit and exploit those data.

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